


and they were roommates (oh my god they were roommates)

by radianceofthefuture



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Actual Proper Communication, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enjolras & Jean Prouvaire Friendship, Fernet Branca, Improper Use of Fernet Branca, M/M, Roommates, Viola Player Jean Prouvaire, ain’t that a fucking miracle, don’t be like R, one small glass is enough, seriously it has the same alcohol content as vodka plus it’s exactly like drinking gasoline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-05-20 18:17:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14899560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radianceofthefuture/pseuds/radianceofthefuture
Summary: “It’s a hobby,” he explains. “I took a few art classes in high school. My dad wasn’t super pleased, but the teachers insisted I was good at it, so I started spending all my free time in the art department. I try to draw when I feel stressed now, because it helps me feel better. Doesn’t always work, though.” His tone is light, but Enjolras knows they’re both thinking of that night when he’d stumbled home drunk on Fernet and cried himself to sleep, with Enjolras lying across the room wanting to help but knowing full well it would be unwelcome.(Or, Enjolras and Grantaire as college roommates who won’t admit they’re stupid over each other.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be ready by Barricade Day, but that didn’t happen. Chapter Two does not exist yet, but hopefully will within a few weeks. We’ll see how things play out.

Enjolras is enjoying the campus tour. Really, he is. The guide is engaging, the campus is beautiful, and this is an excellent school. It’s definitely moved up a few positions on his list of colleges. What’s more, his mother has finally backed off a little with her interrogation of their guide, so he doesn’t even want to melt into the ground from sheer mortification anymore. The tour itself is not the problem.

The problem is the sulking wisp of a boy bringing up the rear of the group with a man who must be his father.

He’s kind of a funny-looking little thing, with a thick shock of dark hair and a pinched-in face, eyes just a bit too close together over the strong, straight line of his nose. The top of his head barely reaches Enjolras’ shoulder, and he is for some godforsaken reason wearing a pink button-up shirt with little blue pineapples on it. The most startling thing about him, though, isn’t the oddly built face or the apparent lack of good taste; it’s the fact that he’s standing in the middle of one of the most highly-ranked universities in the country, and it is very clear that he would rather be just about anywhere else.

Their guide, a red-haired grad student who introduced herself as Louison, comes to a stop in front of a six-story sandstone building.

“This,” she informs her audience, gesturing upwards at it, “is the Peter and Maxine Hucheloup Mathematics Facility. This is where the majority of our math courses and a few of our more theoretical science classes are held.”

“What about engineering?” someone asks from the back of the group. Enjolras turns to look, and finds that the speaker is none other than the man accompanying the odd boy. There’s no question as to their relationship; this man has the same prominent nose, the same fearsome eyebrows, and the same rounded, almost childlike cheeks as his son, but he has lost the swath of wavy hair, and instead of the boy’s sullen disposition, the man is all hard-edged sternness, carried in the clench of his jaw. “If my son is to study engineering, will his classes be here?”

Louison answers, but Enjolras pays no mind to her response, too busy frowning at the boy’s reaction to the question.

Where most teenagers would react with interest or self-consciousness at the answer to a parent’s question on their behalf, the guy seems to sink deeper into his misery. He scuffs his shoe on the sidewalk, looking at the ground. If the pavement were to split open and Satan himself popped out to carry this boy away, Enjolras is getting the vibe that he would welcome the opportunity to escape without hesitation. There’s a cold, tight feeling in his chest that he isn’t quite used to, and it’s growing more intense with every second. It isn’t until later, when he and his mother are climbing into the car with their brochures and their backpacks to start the long drive south towards home, that Enjolras realizes what it is. He’s worried about that boy, with his gaudy shirt and his drab father, but he tries to push the feeling down. After all, what are the chances he’ll ever see him again?

*

Enjolras recognizes his roommate immediately.

He’s changed, of course, in the year and a half since Enjolras first saw him. He’s not wearing the pineapple shirt, for one thing, although Enjolras swears he sees a flash of vibrant fuchsia hanging from the rack in the open closet. He’s grown in some facial hair, as well, sideburns and stubble across his jaw. It strikes a balance in his face, almost, making the juxtaposition between the round, moony cheeks and the sharp features a little less jarring. He has a cardboard box open on his bed, and is staring into it with a furrowed brow. Enjolras raps his knuckles on the doorframe to alert him to his presence.

The boy turns to look at him.

“Hi,” Enjolras says. “Are you —“ he looks at the card in his hand. He feels like it should have his roommate’s name on it, and yet...

“Grantaire,” the boy fills in the blank for him. “Well, really it’s Faraz, but I prefer to go by my surname.”

Enjolras blinks at him. “So do I,” he says, surprised by the coincidence. “I’m Alex, but really, Enjolras is preferable.”

The boy - Grantaire, Enjolras reminds himself; he’s got a name attached to him now - smiles, a broad, lopsided smirk. There’s a gap between his two front teeth, wide enough that Enjolras can see it from across the room.

“Enjolras,” Grantaire tests out. “Cool name. Enj, like ange. Where’s the family from?”

“New Orleans,” Enjolras answers him, and despite his best efforts, the drawl emerges from where he’s carefully stowed it away to drop the vowels and merge the three syllables into one and a half. “Hence the French connection.”

Grantaire nods in understanding. “Far away from where I grew up, then. I’m from Aberdeen, Washington, best known for Kurt Cobain and receiving less sun than almost anywhere else in the country.”

Enjolras tries to imagine such a place. A small, rain-drenched community, lodged in the uppermost left corner of the United States like detritus in the branches of a leafless tree. He thinks back to Grantaire’s sullen, sad face on the day of the campus tour. It’s a world away from the bright, smirking boy he sees before him, and he can only hope that the dark cloud that had so worried him all that time ago hasn’t followed Grantaire here from his gray, sub-Olympic hometown.

*

Enjolras has been studying for eight hours when the door bangs open and Grantaire stumbles across the threshold.

“R,” he greets him, not looking up from his books.

Grantaire laughs, an absurd cackle that breaks upwards into a giggle towards the end.

“Enjolras!” he cries, staggering. He collapses sideways onto his bed, and Enjolras catches a whiff of that evening’s drink of choice.

Fernet Branca. Pretentious bastard.

“It’s —“ he glances at his phone. “A quarter to three in the morning, R. It’s a school night.”

Grantaire snorts. “What do I care if it’s a school night? My body is young; my soul, old as the world. Does the maenad care —“ he hiccups, “does the maenad care, does she give a flying fucking shit that there are babies to be fed and crops to be watered? No. She is called by Dionysus, goddammit, and so she must answer. Must you really find font —“ he frowns, tries again, “must you really find fall - false - fault,” he grins, triumphant, “in my raving, and take issue with my revelry? I am making use of the time I have, while steady Hephaestus suffers at his desk.” He cuts himself off with a frown, cocking his head and squinting at Enjolras. “No, not quite Hephaestus.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Grantaire, is this really the best night for this? You told me yesterday that you have a test in Calculus. I’d have thought you’d want to study or rest.”

And then, to his absolute horror, Grantaire bursts into tears.

“Hey, hey, no —“ he says, standing up from his desk and hurrying to where his roommate is slumped over on the bed. He sits down beside him and, not quite sure how to deal with the situation, gingerly pats him on the back. “Please don’t cry - I didn’t mean —“

“It’s not you,” Grantaire says, looking up at him through tears. “Just - fucking Calculus —“

He cuts himself off with a sob.

“What about Calculus, R?” Enjolras asks gently.

“It’s —“ Grantaire lets out another sob, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears. “It’s so fucking hard, Enjolras. It shouldn’t be this hard, it’s just putting some fucking numbers with some other fucking numbers, but it is, it’s so hard, because it’s fucking math.”

His voice breaks on the last word.

“But... Grantaire,” Enjolras says, as gently as he possibly can, “you’re studying engineering.”

This is clearly the wrong thing to say. Grantaire laughs in a choked sort of way through his tears, while his trembling intensifies. “And?”

Enjolras knows he has to tread carefully, and he takes a moment to consider his words before he speaks.

“I just don’t understand,” he says, slow and soothing, “why you would choose a field of study that involves so much math when it clearly causes you so much stress.”

Grantaire is startled enough that he actually stops crying for a moment and looks Enjolras full in the face. His dark eyes are bloodshot from tears and drink.

“You think I chose this field?”

Enjolras just frowns at him.

“Enjolras,” he says, slowly, “I didn’t choose this field. My father chose it for me. He’s a geometry teacher in a public high school. His dream was always to be an engineer, but he never had the brains for it. I think he’s trying to use me to correct what went wrong in his own life, because somehow he refuses to realize or admit that I’m not smart enough for it, either.”

“Don’t say that,” Enjolras says. It comes out stronger than he means it to, and Grantaire’s eyes go wide, but Enjolras is past the point of caring. “Don’t you fucking say that, Grantaire. You think being bad at math means you aren’t smart?”

Grantaire laughs, a jagged, bitter laugh so far away from the happy drunken cackle. “It’s okay, Enjolras. I’m not like you or any of your scary smart friends, Combeferre and Joly and the rest. I’m dumb. I’m dumb, and I’m going to fail Calculus and drop out of school and my father will be disappointed and angry but it’s his own fault it’s taken him this long to figure it out, and —“

“Stop,” Enjolras says firmly. “Stop, Grantaire. You’re every bit as smart as Combeferre or Joly or anyone else because there is more than one way to be smart. So you’re bad at math. Guess what? So am I. But I’m good at writing and speaking. I’m good at communicating ideas and making an argument. That’s why I’m going into journalism and not the sciences. If you hate your field - which you clearly do, because the mere thought of having to deal with a natural logarithm drove you to get drunk off of Fernet fucking Branca - than you go into a different one.”

“It’s not that simple, Enjolras,” Grantaire snaps at him.

“It is. I think you’re just making it more complicated than it needs to be.”

“They pay my tuition,” Grantaire says, and the crying starts back up. “If I switch out of engineering, I’m done for.”

He pushes Enjolras away from him.

“Leave me be, I need my sleep.”

Reluctantly, Enjolras steps away.

*

Enjolras’ two o’clock lecture has been cancelled for today. He doesn’t know what to do with himself.

He’s in the quad, debating with himself whether it would be worth it to show up three hours early for his next class, when he spots a familiar head of hair curling around the edges of a baseball cap. He elects to ignore the inexplicable swoop in his stomach and instead heads over to where Grantaire is sitting on a park bench, totally engrossed in a notebook open on his lap.

“Hey,” Enjolras greets him. Grantaire starts, looking up at him with wide eyes. When he sees that it’s Enjolras, his expression settles into an infuriating smirk. He reaches up to adjust the position of his cap, and Enjolras is now close enough to make out the logo on it: a stylised capital S, with a silver compass superimposed on top of it. The Seattle Mariners. Of course.

“What’s up, E?” He asks, leaning back to look at Enjolras.

Enjolras shrugs. “My lecture was cancelled and I saw you sitting here, so I thought I’d come say hi. I hope I wasn’t interrupting your work.”

Grantaire waves his concerns away with a dismissive sweep of his hand. “Nah, you’re fine. It’s nothing serious, just a little thing to blow off some steam.”

Enjolras looks down at the notebook Grantaire is holding. He’d assumed Grantaire was taking advantage of the nice weather to do some homework outdoors, but he sees now that it isn’t actually a notebook at all, but a sketchbook, with heavy pages and a sturdy spine. Not only that, but Grantaire has rendered the Jean Lamarque Memorial Library directly across the quad in loving detail, down to the embellishments at the top of the pillars and the neoclassical frieze below the peak of the roof. The rendering is flawless to the point of photorealism.

“Holy shit, R...” he breathes.

Grantaire follows his gaze and blushes scarlet.

“It’s a hobby,” he explains. “I took a few art classes in high school. My dad wasn’t super pleased, but the teachers insisted I was good at it, so I started spending all of my free time in the art department. I try to draw when I feel stressed now, because it helps me feel better. Doesn’t always work, though.” His tone is light, but Enjolras knows they’re both thinking of that night when he’d stumbled home drunk on Fernet and cried himself to sleep, with Enjolras lying across the room wanting to help but knowing full well it would be unwelcome. He clears his throat.

“The sketchbook was a gift,” Grantaire continues. “From my best friend in high school. Flóreal. She gave it to me on the day of our graduation, and told me not to stop until it was full.”

The book looks pretty close to full from where Enjolras is standing.

“Here,” Grantaire offers, “do you want to look?”

Enjolras nods. “If you don’t mind.”

“No, it’s no problem. Here, sit here.”

He scoots over to make space, and Enjolras sits down next to him. Grantaire passes him the book, and he opens it gingerly, not wanting to smear the delicate charcoal lines with a careless fingertip.

“There’s some of everything in there,” Grantaire informs him, sounding almost nervous. “Architecture, wildlife, portraits... some weird surrealist shit...”

Enjolras flips through the book with care. Each drawing is more beautiful than the last. One page is full of small portraits; he sees Joly and Bossuet, who live down the hall from them, caught mid-laugh. There’s Mr. Mabeuf, the kindly head librarian, absorbed in grooming the gnarled bonsai he maintains in a pot in the library foyer, and Bahorel, a boisterous, friendly boy who has somehow already made friends with half of the student body. In a corner of the page, Enjolras spots himself, the tight, riotous light-coloured curls swirling like wildfire around the solemn and symmetrical face. If it weren’t monochromatic, it could pass as his reflection.

“These are incredible, R...”

He turns a page and frowns. The page is full of insects of every variety, crowded together in swarming chiaroscuro. They don’t all appear to be in Grantaire’s art style.

Seeing his confused expression, Grantaire laughs. “Those ones aren’t all me. We had some downtime in Mechanics yesterday, and Combeferre was telling me all about the anatomy of moths, so I asked him to draw some.”

That... sounds like Combeferre. Enjolras smiles to himself. His friends are so cool.

“Grantaire, you’re an incredible artist.”

Grantaire smiles. “I hardly think you know enough about art to make that judgement.”

“Do I need to?” Enjolras protests. “I can see the level of detail and accuracy of these drawings. Are you really saying I need to be well-versed in art to recognise that this,” he taps the most recent sketch with a fingertip, “is a dead ringer for the library, or that you managed to get the texture of my hair right, or that you’ve obviously put enormous care and attention into even the least complicated drawings in here? That’s absurd.”

“I’m okay,” Grantaire says. “I’m not great. I only draw when I’m supposed to be doing something else. Right now? I should be studying. This is a hobby.”

“But it doesn’t have to be,” Enjolras persists, eager. “You looked so happy when you were drawing, R. Why don’t you pursue art?”

Grantaire’s posture stiffens. “We’ve had this conversation, Angel. I’m studying engineering. It’s what my parents want, and I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

Enjolras frowns. “There’s got to be something that can be done. I can see that you’re miserable.”

“There’s nothing,” Grantaire answers, defensive. “Do you think I haven’t thought about this before? Wondered what I could do to get out from under their thumb? I don’t have options, Enjolras.”

“But —“

“No,” Grantaire cuts him off. “Absolutely not. I can’t just conjure up a miracle solution, I’m not you. And the sooner you accept that and move on with your life, the better off we’re all going to be.”

He walks away. Enjolras watches him leave, brow furrowed in thought.

*

“—so then,” Bossuet is saying, raising his voice to be heard over the laughter surrounding him, “I turn around, and who else could it be but a campus cop, right? So now I’m trying to explain that no, as a matter of fact, I’m just waiting for a friend, and the burning garbage can has nothing to do with me. I didn’t start the fire.”

Bahorel bursts into song.

“No, stop. Oh my God.”

Bahorel doesn’t stop.

“Anyway, fortunately for me, this is right when Grantaire showed up. Apparently, he and the cop somehow know each other on a first name basis, and when the dude realised I was with him he let us off with a warning.”

There’s a ripple of laughter. Bahorel is still singing Billy Joel.

“Is that true, R?” Jehan asks, turning to him with a smile.

“Mostly,” he answers, laughing, “although I still maintain that he was just frightened off by my ugly mug.”

Enjolras bristles at this, surprising himself. He’s obviously heard Grantaire joke about his own appearance before, and he’s never taken fault with it beyond a hesitant concern for his friend’s sense of self-worth, but this time feels different. It’s because, as he’s starting to realise, the jokes aren’t actually true. Grantaire is not conventionally attractive, sure, but he is good-looking in a way that sneaks up on you, unnoticed until one day you turn around and wonder how you didn’t see it in the first place. Enjolras remembers full well how odd he’d looked to him that first time he’d seen him, and there’s still that oddness about him, in his hooded eyes and the gap in his teeth, but there’s something else, something intangible, that emanates from him. It’s a sense of immediacy that Enjolras has never encountered in anyone before. Grantaire, for all of his faults and his obscenities, is alive, electrically and unavoidably so, and it bleeds out onto the surface.

He’s not ugly at all, if you can be bothered to look properly.

Grantaire catches Enjolras’ eye and grins crookedly. Enjolras grimaces in return, pressing a hand to his midsection.

“I’m off, I think,” he says, standing from the table. “I feel a bit sick to my stomach.”

He gathers his coat between his friends’ goodbyes (and, in Joly’s case, concerned speculation about antibiotics and intestinal viruses) and makes his way to the door.

That grin stays burned into his mind the entire walk home.

*

Enjolras is really beginning to worry about Grantaire.

He’s been coming in later at night and leaving earlier in the morning, sometimes only falling into bed for half an hour before rushing out again, rumpled and red-eyed from stress and sleeplessness. The impending midterm exams are whipping even the most competent students into a manic frenzy, so Grantaire, who struggles constantly against inaptitude in his subject and a monumental self-doubt that Enjolras has caught only glimpses of, is nothing short of a brilliant, flaming wreck.

When Grantaire starts neglecting to come home at all, Enjolras knows it’s time to take action.

“Combeferre!” he calls, cutting across the quad at a jog. His breath mists out in front of him, catching the light for a brief, sparkling moment before dissipating into the crisp November air.

Combeferre turns to greet him with a small smile.

“Enjolras! What’s up?”

Enjolras catches up to him. “I wanted to talk to you about Grantaire.”

Combeferre arches an eyebrow at him. “What about him?”

“I’m concerned,” Enjolras answers. “He hasn’t been sleeping, I doubt he’s been eating, and he seems... off. Different from how he usually is. Less talkative, more melancholy. I think he’s struggling more than usual with his coursework, and I think we need to figure out a way to help him.”

Combeferre sighs and stops walking. “Everyone’s struggling more than usual, Enjolras. We’re about to have finals.”

“Yes, but this is different.”

“Well, obviously it’s different,” Combeferre says, calmly. “Grantaire has no business studying engineering. He’s absolutely miserable. I’m sure he’d be much happier studying art, or philosophy, or history, but he’s not exactly in a position to do so, and trying to push the issue does nothing to help.”

Enjolras is stubborn. “There has to be something we can do.”

Combeferre looks at him over the rim of his glasses, a gesture Enjolras despises. “Enjolras,” he says, so patiently, “have you put any thought into why this is eating away at you so much?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do, actually.”

“I’m upset about a friend’s unhappiness. There’s nothing unreasonable about that.”

“Enjolras, let me ask you a question. If it were me in Grantaire’s position, or Jehan, or Éponine, would you still react this way?”

“Of course,” Enjolras says, outraged by the question. “You’re my friends. I would want to do everything in my power to help you.”

“But would you obsess over it?” Combeferre asks him, gentle. “Would you let it consume you the way you’ve let this consume you? Would you deal with the issue by acting as a friend and confidante? Or would you deal with it the way you’re dealing with this, with the vigor you apply to fighting voter suppression and assisting queer youth?”

Enjolras frowns. “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying,” Combeferre says, “that I know you, and I know you’re not treating this the way you would if it were merely a friend struggling. You’re treating it like it’s much bigger than that, and I’m saying it might be wise to examine why it’s become the end of the world to you.”

Enjolras struggles to respond. Of course it’s the end of the world, he thinks. This is Grantaire, stuck on a path towards unhappiness. Grantaire, with his quick wit, and his extraordinary memory for names, and his unpredictable sense of humor, and his liquid dark eyes, and the gap in his teeth that whistles when he talks too fast, which is all the time, and —

Oh.

“Oh, my God,” Enjolras breathes.

Combeferre looks almost smug.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras would like to think that he’s coping with the revelation remarkably well, thank you very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said this was going to be a simple little two-chapter work? Boy, was I wrong. Hopefully I can keep it to three; this one’s rather short, so I apologise for that. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Enjolras would like to think that he’s coping with the revelation remarkably well, thank you very much.

Immediately after being faced with the realisation that his feelings towards Grantaire are perhaps something other than platonic, he turned right back around and all but sprinted to his dorm, leaving Combeferre shaking his head in fond exasperation. Now, arriving home, he drops his backpack on the floor and collapses into his desk chair, asking himself how he didn’t see it before.

Grantaire.

God, he’s something.

Enjolras pushes his hands through his hair. How did it take him so long? Hasn’t he spent the entire semester worried about Grantaire’s wellbeing, dwelling on it to a point he never would have reached with any of his other friends? Hasn’t he marvelled, even while rolling his eyes, at Grantaire’s wit and erudition? Just a few short weeks ago, wasn’t he admiring the bizarre handsomeness of that face? Is it any wonder, then, that he now finds himself in —

The door swings open, startling Enjolras out of his thoughts, and Grantaire waltzes in, whistling tunelessly as he crosses over to his desk. Enjolras bolts from his chair and turns to face him.

“Grantaire!” he blurts out. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

Grantaire pauses in rifling through the things strewn on his desk and blinks up at Enjolras, confused at his outburst.

“I left my sketchbook here,” he explains, slowly. His brow is furrowed. “I decided to swing back to grab it. I’m blowing off physics - I’m never going to pass the exam, so really, what’s the point in going - and I want to take advantage of the light to try and draw those weird trees by the law building. Oh, don’t give me that look,” he adds, when Enjolras frowns, “you know as well as I do that I’m not cut out to be an engineer.”

He goes back to digging through the mess.

“You look flustered, Angel,” Grantaire continues while searching. “It’s like you think I’m going to bite you. I’m not - unless you want me to.”

He throws Enjolras a wink, then makes a sharp, triumphant noise as he finally locates the prized sketchbook. Enjolras can actually feel his ears getting red, and sends up a furtive prayer of thanks that Grantaire’s attention is elsewhere, a prayer he immediately revokes when Grantaire turns around to face him.

“Shit, Enjolras, are you okay? It was a joke, I’m sorry, it was really inappropriate of me —“

“It’s fine!” Enjolras squeaks. “It’s fine, it’s okay, it’s no big deal.”

Grantaire looks unconvinced.

“If you’re sure,” he says, then swings his backpack over his shoulder and leaves the room, closing the door softly behind him. Enjolras exhales, shaky, and slumps back down into his chair. He takes it back. This is going to be so, so much harder to cope with than he ever could have anticipated.

*

Enjolras can hear the muffled sound of Britten’s Lachrymae coming from behind Jehan’s door, and it’s enough to make him hesitate before knocking. Jehan has more hobbies than almost anyone else he knows, so when they are actually able to get practice time, it’s virtually sacrosanct; Enjolras hates to drag them away from it, even if he is in the middle of an emotional crisis. Just as he makes up his mind to walk away, though, the music stops and the door swings open.

“Good afternoon, Enjolras,” Jehan greets him with a serene smile. They still have the viola in their hands; even as they speak, their long, slender fingers move on the strings, shaping the notes like some ghostly ballroom dancer, gliding across the floor long after the party has ended and the guests departed.

Enjolras smiles at them guiltily. “Hi, Jehan,” he answers. “Sorry, it can wait. I wanted to talk to you, but I don’t want to interrupt you when you’re practicing.”

Jehan shakes their head at him. “Don’t worry. I was about ready to stop anyway when I heard you approach the door; I have the piece pretty much down. Really, there’s not much I can improve upon until I get the chance to rehearse with the piano accompaniment, and Grantaire hasn’t been able to meet up with me to do that yet.”

Enjolras blinks. “Wait, Grantaire? I didn’t know he played.”

“You didn’t? Really? And here I thought you were the one who was supposed to be in love with him,” Jehan says. They’re so casual throwing it out that Enjolras almost chokes on his own tongue.

“Wait, you knew about that?” he asks.

“Of course I knew,” Jehan says, leaning against their doorframe and still smiling that gentle smile. “I can see how the two of you look at each other. It’s kind of one of those things where after you notice it once, it’s impossible to stop noticing it.”

“Really?” says Enjolras.

“Really,” Jehan confirms. A frown flickers over their face. “Enjolras, did you not know?”

“No,” he says, “I only found out this morning. And I’m already starting to think it’s just pointless, I mean, I’ve been living with him for four months and I didn’t even know he played the piano.”

“In your defense,” Jehan says, “it’s not something he really advertises. I’m surprised he even agreed to accompany me for this; I only convinced him by insisting I would need it for recital in the spring, and he’s not exactly one to let down a friend on something like that, at least not without putting in a decent effort first. It’s part of that whole thing with his family. His dad thinks art, music, all of it, is a waste of time. His mother is a lot more supportive, but she’s reluctant to go against her husband. She’s had her moments, though. Éponine went to high school with Grantaire, and she’s told me that his mother was the only reason he was able to take piano lessons as a child at all, because she realised how happy it would make him and talked his father into it. You didn’t hear any of this from me, though,” they add quickly at the end, as if realising they’ve revealed too much.

Enjolras opens his mouth, then closes it again, because oh, he’s got an idea.

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Jehan prompts him gently.

This is part of why Enjolras likes Jehan so much. They were kids together back in Louisiana, and even at a very young age, Jehan possessed that same gentle sweetness, a soft, shy exterior belying the wicked sense of humor and fierce loyalty at their core. Enjolras and Jehan caught on like wildfire; Jehan was the first person Enjolras ever came out to, and vice versa. Enjolras would trust Jehan with his life, so it makes sense for him to come to them with this. So why can’t he quite find the words?

“I,” he starts, then swallows, tries again. “I think I need to talk about feelings?”

“Okay,” Jehan says, smiling like they’d been waiting for him to say that all along. “Come in. Let’s talk about it.”

Enjolras moves as if to enter, then pauses.

“Wait. Earlier, you said. You said the way we look at each other. Did you mean the way I look at him? Because ‘each other’ implies that, well...”

Jehan raises one eyebrow at him, and he gets the distinct impression that they’re trying not to laugh.

“Come on, Apollo,” and oh, he’d almost forgotten about that silly elementary school nickname, “I think you have a lot to talk about.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are welcomed and encouraged.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is communication and I finally being this thing to a conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at them, having a normal human conversation. Communication is key.

Two days later, Enjolras has a plan.

Granted, it may be a slightly far-fetched plan. He’s willing to cop to that. It has a lot of moving parts, and there are a lot of people he needs to get on board for it to have any chance of working, but Enjolras has that handled. He’s a person people can’t help but like and listen to - Jehan can attest to that. In high school, Enjolras was an openly gay, biracial kid in the American South with an intense personality and a propensity for terrible puns. In spite of all of this, he was popular enough to be elected homecoming king on the sheer force of that charisma. So yeah, he doesn’t exactly expect to have any trouble convincing a bunch of his friends to pitch in to make Grantaire happy.

First, there’s Joly.

“You want me to show this to R?” Joly asks, frowning down at the flyer Enjolras has just handed him.

“I do, yes,” Enjolras answers. “It’s kind of important.”

Joly looks up at Enjolras. “You do know he’ll never go for it, right?” He asks, gently.

“He wouldn’t if I told him about it, no,” Enjolras concedes, “but if you bring it up, he just might.”

Joly hesitates, than sighs, shaking his head. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise you anything.”

Enjolras smiles.

*

“Èponine, hey,” Enjolras says. It took him a while to track her down; he’d scoured the student union building and three different libraries before running into Cosette, who’d finally pointed him in the right direction. It’s not his fault, really. Èponine is a social work major, so this secluded corner of the medical library is pretty much the last place he’d expect her to be. As she scowls up at him, he comes to the slightly belated realization that this was probably the entire point.

“What the hell do you want?” Èponine asks. The look she’s giving him could cut through diamonds. This is going to be a lot more difficult than it was with Joly.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I have an elaborate plan to drastically improve the quality of life of one of our mutual friends. I wanted to enlist your help.”

Èponine’s eye twitches, and her face unexpectedly softens. She looks tired, Enjolras realises; more deeply and profoundly tired than a person their age has any right to be. She slumps down in her chair with a sigh.

“You can’t keep doing this shit, Enjolras. I know you think you mean well, but you need to realise that what Grantaire perceives is you toying with his emotions, and that’s majorly uncool. You’re giving him hope, and that outweighs any good you’re trying to do by helping him.”

Enjolras frowns. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Like hell you don’t,” Èponine scoffs, looking him full in the face. It’s like she sees something there she doesn’t anticipate, and she seems to falter.

“Oh, no,” she says. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Don’t know what?”

“Christ,” Èponine curses. “I mean, I suspected you might be a little dense, but God, Enjolras, this is on a different level altogether. I thought you were just ignoring the situation.”

“What situation?” Enjolras is getting frustrated. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“For the love of God, Enjolras, the poor boy looks at you like you’re made of starlight, and when you constantly tell him that he deserves better, that he deserves to be happy and validated, sure, you might be right, but you’re also being unwittingly cruel, because you’re allowing him to hope that you might just love him back.”

At some point during Èponine’s proselytising, Enjolras’ jaw went slack, and it takes him a second to get it to work again.

“Wait,” he says, weak in the knees. “You’re saying that Grantaire...Grantaire is...”

Èponine winces. “I’m sorry, I went too far. It wasn’t my place to tell you. Just try to be kind to him, okay? Let him down gently, break his heart as little as possible.”

“I’m not going to break his heart at all, if I have anything to say about it,” Enjolras resolves. “Just pray that everything goes as it should for the next, let’s say, twenty minutes or so, okay?”

“Wait, what?” Èponine asks, but Enjolras is already rushing away. “No, don’t walk away from me. What are you going to do, you useless pretty boy?”

Enjolras waves off the questions over his shoulder as he turns the corner and breaks into a sprint.

*

Grantaire is lounging in his desk chair when Enjolras comes bursting through the door.

“Hey, Angel, help me out really quick. Bossuet says Ginger is the best Spice Girl, but I say he’s wrong, and it’s definitely Scary. Can you tell him I’m right, please?” he asks, staring down at his phone. When Enjolras doesn’t answer, he looks up, concerned.

“Enjolras?”

“I never knew,” Enjolras says. “I didn’t - I mean, I thought you were making fun of me, I didn’t think—“

Grantaire goes pale.

“I have to go,” he says, bolting to his feet. “I mean, I have a thing, I’ve gotta—“

“No, please,” Enjolras says, reaching out to stop him, “please, just let me get the words out.”

Grantaire stops, reluctantly. His body is wound tight; he looks like he’s ready to take off running at any moment.

Enjolras drops his arm, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s fascinating, you know? You’re unlike anyone else I’ve ever met.”

“What do you mean?” Grantaire asks. He still doesn’t look entirely comfortable with this conversation, but at least now he’s shifted from defensiveness to slight confusion.

“You’re a contradiction,” Enjolras explains. “I know you like to say that you don’t have a lot of faith in the potential for positive change, but when you’re given the opportunity to help, you try anyway. You signed that petition about daycare services that Jehan was passing around. When I asked you to help us register voters, you sat at the table with Courfeyrac outside the grocery store for hours.”

“He did all the work.”

“But you showed up, R, and that’s worth something, at least. You’ve said that people in general are terrible, but everyone can see how much you care about your friends. You’ll listen to Combeferre talk about stars and insects without discouraging him. You’ll take time out of your schedule to accompany Jehan on the piano.”

Grantaire shakes his head. “I just care about my friends, Enjolras. You’re giving me more credit than I deserve.”

“No,” says Enjolras. “You consistently undersell yourself. You let your parents push you around and force you into a career path that makes you miserable, and that frustrates me. I don’t understand how you can just accept the cruelty of fate without even kicking up a fuss about it. I’m angry with your parents for disregarding your feelings in that way. I was frustrated that you wouldn’t stand up for yourself. I thought up a plan that I thought would solve all of that, but I’m realising now that it was way out of line. While I still think it’s practically criminal that your right to self-determination is pretty much being taken from you, that’s a fight you have to go through for yourself, and all I can do is support you through it. That’s not what I want to talk to you about. I’ve spent a while grappling with the realisation that my feelings for you aren’t actually platonic, and I have reason to believe that you might reciprocate.”

Grantaire gapes at him, letting go of the chair he’d been white-knuckling throughout the course of Enjolras’ speech. “What.”

Enjolras balks a little at that. “Obviously, if I was mistaken, there’s no problem. I’m not going to pressure you, and I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. I just—“

“Can you stop talking for like half a minute, Angel?” Grantaire interrupts. “I just need a second to process.”

Enjolras waits while Grantaire closes his eyes and breathes deeply. In. Out. In. Out.

“So, let me just clarify,” Grantaire says, finally. “You...like me. Like. Romantically.”

Enjolras smiles and nods, tentative.

“And you baked up some madcap scheme to help rescue me from engineering hell.”

“That’s the general idea, yes. If Joly approaches you within the next few days with a flyer about an art show, that’s what that’s about.”

“Great. Good to know. And you initially dreamed up said plan because you for some reason think I’m worthy of rescuing, but are calling it off because of some weird thing about, like, respect or something.”

“Of course you’d be worthy of rescuing if you needed it, but I’m inclined to believe that you can rescue yourself.”

Grantaire laughs, soft. “You are an absurd human being, you know that?”

The words are gentle, and his eyes are fond.

“If you want to think so, go ahead.”

“I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that, of course,” Grantaire hastens to assure him. “If there were, it wouldn’t make sense for me to be so head over heels for you.”

Enjolras blinks, and cracks a small smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Grantaire answers. His eyes are warm, and when he smiles back at Enjolras, it’s like a puzzle piece finally slotting into place.

It feels a little bit like destiny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished the thing!! In conclusion, I’d like to say that this is DUMB and I should probably have just left it as the tiny oneshot that the first scene in the first chapter was intended to be, but here we are. Thanks to everyone who got this far. I still don’t know why I wrote this.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are the air I breathe.
> 
> [Come find me on Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/radiance-of-the-future)


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